The present invention relates to autonomic computing, autonomic systems or the like, and more particularly to virtualizing a set of managers to form a composite manager in an autonomic system.
Autonomic computing technology is based on creating system components referred to as autonomic managers that can perform actions that make systems more self-managing. An autonomic manager may perform a closed autonomic computing loop, such as a monitor-analyze-plan-execute (MAPE) loop or the like. Accordingly, the autonomic computing loop may involve the operations of monitoring a manageable entity, analyzing any data or information received, planning any actions as a result of the analysis and executing the actions. Autonomic systems may also include manual managers that allow human interaction with the autonomic system.
In autonomic systems, it may be common for multiple autonomic or manual managers to work together to manage various aspects of the same managed entity or entities, such as resources, other autonomic managers, manual managers or the like. Such coordinated management may be complicated and may present challenges that need to be met. For example, the managed entities or resources may need to send notifications or make requests to multiple managers. Managers may interact to share management of resources in a number of different ways but when combined need to be included in a more complex autonomic system. There may be conflicts that may need to be detected and resolved. Requests from managers to resources or vice versa may need to be dealt with differently when combined with other managers than when the manager is independent, as well as other possible coordination matters.